Woo! I'm in Wuhan.
Trip Start
Aug 13, 2012
1
4
13
Trip End
Aug 26, 2012
Wuhan, Hubei, China
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
The Wuhan students were waiting for us, smiles plastered on their faces, holding a duke sign for us. They brought us snacks and water; we were thrilled about the water.
Oh yes, let's backtrack to the toilets. So my first experience with the infamous squat toilets was in the Beijing airport. I really had no idea what to expect when I stepped into the stall, but it's really not bad. It's actually surprisingly efficient. I squat using public toilets anyway so it was actually very familiar for me. There's a porcelain little hole in the floor over which the user will squat and urinate/defecate. It's very sanitary and I had no problem with it.
Fast forward to day one. After the journey to our hotel with the very friendly Wuhan students as our guide. We arrived at the hotel at about 2 something in the morning and ridiculously tired. The hotel itself is pretty nice and western as far as I can tell. When we woke up the next day, we were pretty excited and ready to see more of the glimpse of campus that we had seen earlier that morning. We dressed and met the wuhan students downstairs for breakfast. Again, I found myself unsure of what to expect for a traditional Chinese breakfast, but I was not disappointed. We were served a buffet style table of various foods like savory pancakes, steamed buns, a Hubei specialty dish of rice and eggs, noodles (interestingly), steamed cabbage, sweet potatoes and a mishmash of other goodies. To wash it all down we had a delicious cup of hot soybean milk, a Chinese staple. After flexing our chopstick skills and eating until we could burst, our guides led us out and into campus.
Wuhan university is one of China's oldest, but also very beautiful universities. The campus is hidden amongst beautiful shrubbery and trees that frame most of the streets and walkways. The buildings have beautiful traditional architecture and every building is full of history and a story to be told. The students are young an appearance and have very western dress.
The morning tour was wonderful, but excruciatingly hot and humid. We found ourselves sweating not long after leaving the hotel and we even stopped for water about midway through the tour. Along with all of the beauty, many of the buildings were also very run down in appearance. Some of the streets had piles of rubbish strewn about in the open, and every now and then, we would walk into a cloud of a stench too awful to describe accurately.
We partnered up with the students and chattered away the entire mornings we ping ponged questions back and forth. They know so much about OUR culture and most of our group found ourselves knowing little to nothing about theirs. They spoke to us in understandable, fluent English and for that we were extremely grateful. My student, 'Ana' , was extremely talkative and pretty hilarious. We ended up talking about everything (our brothers, our moms, our age) and at one point I felt comfortable enough to ask her about race in china and how black people are perceived
I was convinced that I am the ONLY black person in china so i have a right to know and This is where she got hilarious.
"Nonononononono," she said shaking her had and motioning with her arms. She explained how racism is not a problem in china and most people don't care about skin color and how inner beauty is what is most important. Oh, she also included how much she loves Barack Obama. Now I'm not naive and I do believe I know better. Racism is a problem everywhere, so her coverup explanation about black people seemed very generic and I kind of just shook my head.
That being said, I and another classmate saw a total of two black (African) people today. One was female, the other, male. I have not been treated any differently since I've been here, but I also recognize that in certain parts of the world, racism is much more covert and less of an outward issue. It's more of a mindset then a way of behaving toward another person. I'm not justifying racism in any manner, but it's nice to not see the racism explicitly.
The cultural exchange of the morning was one of the best parts of the day, I think.
After the tour, they insisted we return to out hotel for a rest before lunch, and we did. The rest was short lived, however, and we were once again back out in the heat. They took us to the campus cafeteria which was its own blend of delicious chaos. With no signs in English, our guide students helped us figure out our meals. My student was wonderful, but ultimately the chef misunderstood her and gave me the wrong meal. I had initially asked for chicken and noodles (with no broth). He served me a pho like soup with beef bones, egg noodles, and a piping hot savory broth. It was tasty, but very difficult to eat and my student guides cringed as I sloppily managed to consume my meal (which further aggravated the outside heat, I might add). Sweating and desperate to finish my meal and save myself further embarrassment, I downed my soup and my red bean tea.
After lunch, we went back to the hotel to rest yet again before our welcome dinner later that evening. Initially I read a few chapters on my iPad before sleep inevitably overcame me, and the rest of the group.
